The present invention relates to an apparatus for the processing of a workpiece by means of a laser beam.
In the course of processing a workpiece by means of a laser the problem often arises that for certain operations (labelling, trimming, etc.) a high intensity beam is required, while for others (for example soldering, etc.) a high power beam is required. Usually therefore, different lasers with the most favorable configuration are used, or an existing installation is manually reset. For the optimum adaptation of the beam parameters (for example the diameter of the beam on the workpiece and the power), it is generally necessary to install replace or reset optical components both inside the laser resonator (mode diaphragms, lenses) and outside the resonator (for example beam expanders, lenses, diaphragms, filters).
If, however, different types of operations for which different beam parameters are required are to be performed on the same workpiece, resetting requires too much time in many cases. Furthermore, resetting by hand is cumbersome and often dangerous due to laser radiation, electric voltages and the like.